Manual bark hacks have been developed and used for over two centuries to remove diagonal strips or streaks of bark from pine trees so that gum resin naval stores can be collected from the trees. The resin collected can be chemically processed to manufacture many useful compositions such as turpentine, pine oil, tar pitch, asphalt and other similar materials, which were formerly and are still used by shipbuilders and in many other industries.
However, forest workers to do this bark removal work are presently in short supply and it has therefore become obvious that if the gum naval stores industry is to survive in the United States, the tedious and hard work of streaking pine trees must be made easier and more productive. It has therefore become apparent that a power operated bark hack would both speed up the streaking operation and increase worker productivity.
It has also become desirable to overcome the problem of fixed orientation of the chipper blade in manually operated bark hacks so that the tool could more easily be used by left-handed or right-handed workers or in an over-handed or under-handed position when needed.
Responsive to the above problems in the art, electrical and pneumatic hacks have been proposed and a pneumatic hack has been developed, but none of these power operated bark hacks has proved to be entirely satisfactory in operation.